North Korea Cancels Family Reunions Until ‘Normal Mood’ Prevails

North Korea canceled plans for
reunions this week of families separated by the division of the
peninsula, and accused South Korean leaders of “throwing
obstacles” in the way of reconciliation.

“Family reunions will be postponed until a normal mood is
created to proceed with talks and negotiations,” according to a
statement from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of
Korea, cited Sept. 21 by the North’s official Korean Central
News Agency. “Hard-won inter-Korean ties are again inching
close to a serious crisis”, the committee said in the statement.

The North also put off talks on resuming tours by South
Koreans to its Mount Geumgang resort after recent weeks of
improved relations between the two sides. Kim Jong Un’s regime
accused the South of seeking confrontation, and threatened
“strong and decisive” retaliation against any military
provocation.

“The North has expressed its dissatisfaction with the
South’s somewhat passive attitude towards the resumption of
Geumgang tours, and it’s now seeking South Korea’s stance on
that,” said Yang Moo Jin, a professor at the University of
North Korean Studies in Seoul. “Depending on what President
Park Geun Hye indicates about Geumgang tour resumption, the
postponement could be shortened or extended even until next
year.”

‘Inhumane’ Decision

Cross-border relations had improved in recent weeks, even
as international concern mounted that the North may have
reactivated a 5-megawatt reactor capable of producing enough
plutonium to produce one nuclear weapon each year.

South Korea’s government condemns the North’s decision as
“inhumane,” Kim Eui Do, a Unification Ministry spokesman, said
on Sept. 23. “The North is again driving the recent dialogue mood
toward confrontation. It should realize that nothing will come
from that.”

According to a Sept. 16 statement from the Korean Red Cross,
some 96 South Koreans were to meet family members from the North
on Sept. 25-27, while 100 North Koreans were to meet their
relatives on Sept. 28-30. The majority are aged at 80 or older,
including 28 people in their 90s.

‘Desperate Issue’

Some 129,035 South Koreans have reported they have family
members in the North since 1988, although 56,544 of them are now
dead, according to the Unification Ministry data. One of the
South Koreans waiting for the reunion event passed away a few
days ago and three had to give up the trip due to health
problems, the unification ministry’s Kim said Sept. 21.

“This is such a desperate issue to the old people,” he
said.

The two sides reopened their joint industrial complex on
Sept. 16, reviving the lone symbol of economic cooperation five
months after it was shuttered amid the North’s threats of
preemptive nuclear attack.

The agreement to reopen Gaeseong paved the way for a
separate accord to revive reunions of families separated by the
Korean War, which were to take place at the Mount Geumgang
resort in North Korea Sept. 25-30.

A North Korean naval ship fired across the bow of a Russian
fishing boat off the communist country’s east coast on Sept. 21,
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The vessel was
boarded by the North Koreans and searched before being allowed
to continue its journey, the ministry said. No one was hurt and
the ship wasn’t damaged, it said.